


When Angels Fear to Tread

by pinstripedJackalope



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Homophobia, Injury, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Meeting the Parents, More characters to be added, No war, Not Canon Compliant, Rating May Change, Secret Relationship, Sort Of, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Veil, haven't decided if he's dead or just in the silent city, valentine isn't a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: Magnus bane has waited four hundred years for the Veil to lift, revealing his soulmate to him.  Alec Lightwood, on the other hand, has dreaded the lifting of the Veil, which would inevitably reveal that his soulmate is a man and incur the wrath of his family and the rest of the Clave.  When these two men come together they decide the best course of action is to keep their relationship a secret--a feat that might be nigh impossible.
Relationships: Clary Fray/Jace Wayland, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 13
Kudos: 52





	When Angels Fear to Tread

**Author's Note:**

> Some important notes: this universe is a shadow world universe in which Valentine was killed/captured when he used the Circle to attack the Accords, eighteen years ago now. Jace was sent to the Lightwoods as a baby and raised beside Alec and Izzy. Don't yet know what happened to Sebastian. Clary's mother revealed the truth of the shadow world to her when she was eighteen, after which Clary came to the institute looking to be trained. The only other major difference between this verse and the books is the Veil: an ancient curse/blessing from the Fae that affects all humans and human downworlders. It obscures the face of every other being on the earth except a person's 'soulmate'. The Veil 'lifts' to reveal said soulmate--sometimes all at once the first time soulmates meet and sometimes slowly after they've known each other a while.
> 
> I don't have an update schedule and I'm not sure when the rest of this fic will be complete. I hope you enjoy it in the meantime!

⁂

Magnus Bane was five years old, a little boy in Batavia of the Dutch East Indies, when the first of the five most important events of his life came to pass. It went a little something like this:

One—his warlock mark appeared, two distinct green-yellow cat eyes that stared at him in the glass behind his mother’s washbasin. 

Two—he told his mother, and watched her blurred face grow pale as she realized he wore the devil’s mark.

Three—his mother, after months of silently suffering with the revelation that she’d born the son of a prince of hell without her consent, committed suicide, and…

Four—several years later his step-father tried to drown him in the river by their house for his demonic inclinations.

Such was life as a warlock in the 1600s. Being a scared child, watching as his mother’s body was lowered into the ground, lashing out with magic against the man who tried to kill him… it was all par for the course. Now, meeting his soulmate, on the other hand… that, though he didn’t know it yet, would be the fifth and final of the five most important events of Magnus Bane’s life, and _that_ event would be anything but mundane. And it would go a little something like…

⁂

“Magnus! Whit like are ye? Ye’ve got a aura lit a melted welly.”

His aura was what, now? Magnus turned away from the group of fae he’d been conversing with, blinking over at the decidedly Scottish-sounding werewolf who was currently accosting him, sloshing drink in hand. Two more wolves were at this one’s back, both equally sloshed—they slapped him heartily on the shoulders as they waited for an answer. 

“I’m fine, but—who even are you people?” Magnus asked, guiding the drink of the wolf in front away from him so it wouldn’t splash on his shirt. He’d rather not smell like beer for the rest of the evening, thanks.

“A dinnae ken, a’m fae ye grocery hain? A hae an invitation—”

Dear god, and people said New Yorker English was hard to decipher. Not that Magnus had much of a New York accent. He’d had so many accents and dialects over the years that his English couldn’t be pinpointed to any one location. Which was for the best, really—it lent to the air of mystique he liked to seep himself in. Not that drunk werewolves would appreciate a thing like that. Why did Magnus even try.

He shook his head a little, shaking himself. He was zoning out. Besides, he knew why he tried—it was because he was four hundred years old and he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t stagnate. That was the entire reason he hosted these things in the first place. Didn’t stop him from wishing he could just kick everyone out and go to sleep, though.

Magnus, mercifully, was spared from trying to decode the rest of the conversation a moment later as he felt his wards thrum a little higher around them. 

Someone was here. Well, a lot of people were here—it was a party, after all. Generally speaking, however, his wards didn’t get up in a huff over having fae or children of the moon or blood-suckers—not at the same time, of course—in the near vicinity. 

Who could it be, in that case?

“Excuse me, I need to get the door,” Magnus said, just as the buzzer rang out, barely audible over the din of the music. He paused a moment before clapping the wolf on the shoulder and pivoting gracefully away to start fighting his way through the crowd.

By the time he made it to the door, the buzzer had gone off twice more, the third time cut short as if someone had knocked the person’s hand off the button. He wasn’t quite sure to expect as he pulled the door wide, but a group of shadowhunters was certainly not it. And yet here they were, four of them plus a mundane, all with the Veil blurring their faces. All except for…

Wow. What beautiful blue eyes.

“Magnus? Magnus Bane?” one of the girls, one with a pale face and long black hair, asked after a moment.

“That would be me,” Magnus said, cocking an eyebrow without tearing his eyes from the face of the young man who was very clearly staring straight back at him. Magnus was suddenly grateful that he’d taken the time to do his make-up today. He had never seen someone’s face so clear—a few times in his past he thought the Veil had begun to lift for one lover or another, but it had never left anyone so unmasked as it had this kid. This kid and his vibrant blue eyes.

Unbidden, Magnus thought back to his time with Camille. How many times had he asked her what color her eyes were? Too many to count. Every time she’d give him a different answer, and he’d spend the day imagining her as she described herself, imagining that she was the most beautiful being on this earth. 

She used to ask him, when they were together all those years ago, why he always put on his make-up when he knew no one would see it. He would always respond that it was for her, that one day the Veil would lift for her and reveal his face to her beautiful eyes. He kept waiting and waiting, imagining the day that he could finally look her in the eye, but alas, she was never unveiled for him nor him for her, and in the end that was probably for the best. She wasn’t so great after all. And those fantasies, all those daydreams about how her face must have been more beautiful than the finest art in the world… they all paled in comparison to the visage of the boy standing before him now.

Which, of course. Magnus smiled over, winking to the shadowhunter, who flushed up to his ears, as the girl handed over an invitation. Of course fate would give him the most handsome of all God’s creations as a soulmate. 

This was going to be fun.

⁂

**Author's Note:**

> Cheers! Let me know what you think!


End file.
